How should a creative director address the legacy of the designer whose house they inherit? It’s a question made newly relevant by the passing of the great Karl Lagerfeld in Paris last week. And it’s a subject that came to mind as Anthony Vaccarello’s superconfident new collection for Saint Laurent marched past—starting with look number 2, a broad-shouldered, ivory wool coat modeled by a 21st-century doppelgänger of the YSL muse Betty Catroux, complete with signature sideswept peroxide mane and black shades.

Since his arrival nearly three years ago, Vaccarello has seemed comfortable to explore the parts of Yves Saint Laurent’s legacy that most closely align with his own—briefly: anything short, short, short. But spanning 40 years as it does, YSL’s oeuvre is vast. Vaccarello’s latest explored several eras or moments of that legacy, but the aspect that had everyone in the audience so jazzed tonight was the tailoring, which was strong, almost man-size, and focused on the shoulders. In a preview, Vaccarello said he spent six months getting the proportions right and that they were built up with padding to extend two centimeters beyond the shoulder seams. “The show pieces are all done by hand,” he explained. “We’ll have to figure out how to perfect it [in the factory].”